3 posts tagged “niece”

my niece, now two and a half, has developed a new habit.  whenever discussing a random object such as a chair, the cat or mommy's bracelet, she suddenly demands, "i smell it!"  we're like, "okay, go ahead and smell it."  after she's given it a good, audible whiff, we ask, "what does it smell like?" to which she invariably replies, "peanut butter."

Fact #1:  whenever she hears the word "pilates," my niece lays down on the floor, sticks her feet in the air and pumps her arms at her sides in a pretty good imitation of the torturous "Hundred" (one hundred pumps with the arms while your legs are at a 45-degree angle or so).

Fact #2:  in my family, we tend to talk more about working out than we actually do it.

Result:  she got super excited the other day when i ACTUALLY STARTED DOING PILATES.  she came running over, lay down next to me and started the Hundred.  she watched my face, riveted as i kept count for us and occasionally reminded her to breathe.  then somewhere around fifteen, she put her legs down, turned to me and suggested, "geegoo," with an accompanying sign in ASL.

apparently it was time for a cookie.

we're eating sunday lunch at our favorite french cafe around (the only french cafe around. see below:)

and my Adorable Niece aged just 22 months (she's a genius!) wolfs down her fruit just so she can drink the juice at the bottom of the bowl.  this is her favorite part.  she has discovered that finishing the fruit is best done first, before tipping the bowl's contents onto her face.  (see?  genius!)  this time, when she puts the bowl down, there is a bit of pineapple stuck to the end of her nose.

"you have fruit on your nose!" i exclaim.

astonished, she removes the pineapple for examination.  she looks at me, processing.  points to her nose, says, "nose."

my niece's genius delights me.  i nod.  "nose fruit!" i proclaim.

to this, she responds by meditatively cramming that pineapple chunk as far up her left nostril as she can before the entire table of adults yell, "gah!!"

surprised and confused, my niece gazes around at us and breathes thoughtfully through her nose.  the pineapple flaps gently back and forth in there.

fear not, her father (my brother) extracted it safely, but the damage was done.  for that lunchtime at least, I assumed her grandfather's place as the Bad Influence.  this aunt thing is a tough gig.  after all the choked back swear words and missed opportunities for off-color jokes, what finally gets me... is nose fruit.  add that one to the mental list of "banned until she's thirty."  or at least old enough not to shove food into the wrong facial orifices.

i couldn't resist though: when loaning her mother a crumpled kleenex from my pocket later, i had to vouch for its cleanliness.  i whispered, "no nose fruit."